• Simplicity: the language can be learned over the course of a weekend
• Fast compilation: ≈110k loc/s with a Clang backend, ≈500k loc/s with native and tcc backends (Intel i5-7500, SSD, no optimization) (demo video)
• Easy to develop: V compiles itself in less than a second
• Performance: as fast as C (V's main backend compiles to human-readable C)
• Safety: no null, no globals, no undefined behavior (wip), immutability by default
• C to V translation (Translating DOOM demo video)
• Hot code reloading
• Flexible memory management. GC by default, manual via v -gc none, arena allocation via v -prealloc, autofree via v -autofree (autofree demo video).
• Cross-platform UI library
• Built-in graphics library
• Easy cross-compilation
• REPL
• Built-in ORM
• Built-in web framework
• C and JavaScript backends
• Great for writing low-level software (Vinix OS)

Despite being at an early development stage, the V language is relatively stable, and doesn't change often. But there will be changes before 1.0. Most changes in the syntax are handled via vfmt automatically.

The V core APIs (primarily the os module) will also have minor changes until they are stabilized in V 1.0. Of course, the APIs will grow after that, but without breaking existing code.

After the 1.0 release V is going to be in the "feature freeze" mode. That means no breaking changes in the language, only bug fixes and performance improvements. Similar to Go.

Will there be V 2.0? Not within a decade after 1.0, perhaps not ever.

To sum it up, unlike many other languages, V is not going to be always changing, with new features introduced and old features modified. It is always going to be a small and simple language, very similar to the way it is right now.

--> (this is the preferred method)

Usually, installing V is quite simple if you have an environment that already has a functional git installation.

Note: On Windows, run make.bat instead of make in CMD, or ./make.bat in PowerShell. Note: On Ubuntu/Debian, you may need to run sudo apt install git build-essential make first.

To get started, execute the following in your terminal/shell:

git clone https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
make

That should be it, and you should find your V executable at [path to V repo]/v. [path to V repo] can be anywhere.

(Like the note above says, on Windows, use make.bat, instead of make.)

Now try running ./v run examples/hello_world.v (or v run examples/hello_world.v in cmd shell).

• Trouble? Please see the notes above, and link to Installation Issues for help.

Note: V is being constantly updated. To update V to its latest version, simply run:

v up

The Tiny C Compiler (tcc) is downloaded for you by make if there is a compatible version for your system, and installed under the V thirdparty directory.

This compiler is very fast, but does almost no optimizations. It is best for development builds.

For production builds (using the -prod option to V), it's recommended to use clang, gcc, or Microsoft Visual C++. If you are doing development, you most likely already have one of those installed.

Otherwise, follow these instructions:

• Installing a C compiler on Linux and macOS

• Installing a C compiler on Windows

On Unix systems, it creates a /usr/local/bin/v symlink to your executable. To do that, run:

sudo ./v symlink

On Windows, start a new shell with administrative privileges, for example by pressing the Windows Key, then type cmd.exe, right-click on its menu entry, and choose Run as administrator. In the new administrative shell, cd to the path where you have compiled V, then type:

v symlink

(or ./v symlink in PowerShell)

That will make V available everywhere, by adding it to your PATH. Please restart your shell/editor after that, so that it can pick up the new PATH variable.

# xbps-install -Su base-devel
# xbps-install libatomic-devel
$ git clone https://github.com/vlang/v
$ cd v
$ make

git clone https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
docker build -t vlang .
docker run --rm -it vlang:latest

git clone https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
docker build -t vlang_alpine - < Dockerfile.alpine
alias with_alpine='docker run -u 1000:1000 --rm -it -v .:/src -w /src vlang_alpine:latest'

Compiling static executables, ready to be copied to a server, that is running another linux distro, without dependencies:

with_alpine v -skip-unused -prod -cc gcc -cflags -static -compress examples/http_server.v
with_alpine v -skip-unused -prod -cc gcc -cflags -static -compress -gc none examples/hello_world.v
ls -la examples/http_server examples/hello_world
file   examples/http_server examples/hello_world
examples/http_server: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header
examples/hello_world: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header

You should see something like this:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  16612 May 27 17:07 examples/hello_world
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 335308 May 27 17:07 examples/http_server

On Termux, V needs some packages preinstalled - a working C compiler, also libexecinfo, libgc and libgc-static. After installing them, you can use the same script, like on Linux/macos:

pkg install clang libexecinfo libgc libgc-static make git
git clone https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
make

To bring IDE functions for the V programming languages to your editor, check out v-analyzer. It provides a VS Code extension and language server capabilities for other editors.

The plugin for JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, CLion, GoLand, etc.) also offers a great development experience with V. You can find all features in its documentation.

Other Plugins:

• Vim plugins
• Emacs plugins
• Sublime Text 3 plugins
• Atom plugins

Make sure V can compile itself:

$ v self
$ v
V 0.3.x
Use Ctrl-C or `exit` to exit

>>> println('hello world')
hello world
>>>

cd examples
v hello_world.v && ./hello_world    # or simply
v run hello_world.v                 # this builds the program and runs it right away

v run word_counter/word_counter.v word_counter/cinderella.txt
v run news_fetcher.v
v run tetris/tetris.v

In order to build Tetris or 2048 (or anything else using sokol or gg graphics modules), you will need additional development libraries for your system.

The net.http module, the net.websocket module, and the v install command may all use SSL. V comes with a version of mbedtls, which should work on all systems. If you find a need to use OpenSSL instead, you will need to make sure that it is installed on your system, then use the -d use_openssl switch when you compile.

To install OpenSSL on non-Windows systems:

On Windows, OpenSSL is simply hard to get working correctly. The instructions here may (or may not) help.

V's sync module and channel implementation uses libatomic. It is most likely already installed on your system, but if not, you can install it, by doing the following:

https://github.com/vlang/ui

With V's vab tool, building V UI and graphical apps for Android can become as easy as:

./vab /path/to/v/examples/2048

https://github.com/vlang/vab.

Check out the Building a simple web blog tutorial and Gitly, a light and fast alternative to GitHub/GitLab:

https://github.com/vlang/gitly

V is great for writing low-level software like drivers and kernels. Vinix is an OS/kernel that already runs bash, GCC, V, and nano.

https://github.com/vlang/vinix

V thanks Fabrice Bellard for his original work on the TCC - Tiny C Compiler. Note the TCC website is old; the current TCC repository can be found here. V utilizes pre-built TCC binaries located at https://github.com/vlang/tccbin/.

Please see the Troubleshooting section on our wiki page.